Gardening for Wellness

If you read my blog regularly, then you know that I’m focused on making healthy choices, starting with the food we eat. A great way to get the freshest, yummiest fruits and veggies is by growing them yourself. We have a fairly large garden and grow a variety of foods. I enjoy each stage of the gardening process, from the planning and planting, watering and weeding to the best part, harvesting and eating!

Researchers found daily gardening to represent the single biggest risk reduction for dementia, reducing incidence by 36%.

If that’s not enough to inspire you to start gardening, consider this: gardening is also a great form of aerobic exercise. By pulling weeds, lugging around heavy hoses and watering cans, reaching for plants and twisting and bending as you work, you’re giving your muscles a workout. This helps with flexibility, stamina and strength of many small muscle groups.

A photo of my garden with raised beds

Where to Start – Planning Your garden

Whether your garden is a small patio planter, a backyard vegetable garden or a plot in a community garden, you can make your space work and find a way to grow some of your own food. Once you’ve identified where your garden will be placed and how much space you have to work with, the next step is to plan what to grow. I love getting my kids involved in the planning stage. I ask each of them what they would like to see in the garden. I’ve found that the more involved the kids are with planning and planting, the more likely they are to eat the produce.

From there, I think about some of our favorite recipes and the ingredients needed. For example, Bahram and I like to eat cucumber and tomato salad, so tomatoes and cucumbers are a must-have. I use a lot of basil, mint and parsley when cooking so I always plant those as well. Just writing about these makes me think about eating a caprese salad, made using fresh mozzarella along with our homegrown tomato and basil – so good! Each year, we also make fresh salsa with peppers, tomatoes and onions from our garden. Another family-favorite are fresh beets.

I’ve had strawberries, raspberries and asparagus growing for several years. Strawberries and raspberries do great with a little shade as opposed to full sun, so they are in separate areas. These plants take a couple years to get established, but once they get going, they return each year, not requiring springtime planting.

My Gardening Tips

Raised Beds: A few years ago, I changed our garden into raised beds. The raised beds help provide good drainage and serve as a barrier to pests, such as slugs and snails. They also help keep weeds at a minimum. Instead of tilling, which isn’t great for soil, with raised beds you can add compost right on top and can plant earlier in the season. Raised beds are great for beginners. All you need is a box, soil, some compost, seeds and water!

Pest Control: Last summer, we had a bad year with Asian Beetles. Unfortunately, there really isn’t a great natural way to get rid of them except by manually pulling them off the plants. I’m hoping the polar vortex this past winter will have wiped out most of this invasive species and that they won’t be as bad… The benefits of a deep freeze! One of my favorite natural remedies for keeping pests away from the garden is to place a clove of garlic into the soil. Bugs don’t like garlic’s strong smell so they stay away. You can also make a homemade pepper spray by mixing a couple tablespoons of red pepper with 6 drops of dish soap or you can mix black pepper, chili pepper, ginger and paprika. Spray your plants with this and it will keep the insects away.

Indoor Gardening: For those that don’t have a garden, herbs are a great way to start. You can easily grow these indoors near a sunny window. Actually, most veggies will also do fine indoors. You’ll need a sunny spot, a pot with drainage holes and potting soil.

What are some of your gardening tips? I’d love to hear them – until then, happy gardening!

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